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A Vrykolakas Vampire in Sunny Mykonos

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A vampiric Vrykolakas from Greek folklore was said to terrorize the inhabitants on Mykonos island. To stop the haunting, they exhumed, burned and buried the remains of the body on an inhabited island. But did it work?

On the sunny Greek Island, Mykonos, people mostly think of vacationing, the blue sea and nightlife lights. What Greece was known to the western Europeans centuries ago was a wild and haunted country, and many came back with ghost stories. 

Read More: Check out all ghostly tales from Greece

One of the stories told from the time when the Venetians and Ottomans fought for the island at the start of the 1700s. A story about the dead coming back from the dead to terrorize the living. 

Mykonos: Is a Greek Island part of the Cyclades islands. Today it’s known for its booming tourism and vibrant nightlife. It was in ancient times a poor island though, windy where the locals worshiped many gods, and where stories about the dead coming back was plentiful.

The Manic Panic of the Fear of the Vrykolakas

In 1701, a French botanist named  Joseph Pitton de Tournefort arrived in Mykonos and witnessed something that he didn’t believe in himself, but swept the whole local community in a panic.   

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort: French botanist sent by Louis XIV to catalog plants in Greece and Asia Minor. He detailed his journey in, A Voyage Into the Levant, posthumously published in 1717 after he was run over by a carriage. It turned out to be one of the most detailed accounts of the belief in Vrykolakas and what the community did in face of a supposed haunting.

An annoying local resident was murdered and buried in a chapel in the remote countryside. It’s not specified what happened to his killer and if someone ever paid for his death. In life he had been ill natured and argumentative, and not many liked him alive. No one liked him in his afterlife.  

Read Also: The Atoning Vrykolakas Vampire in Santorini

A few days after his burial he was reported by the locals to be stalking the village as a vrykolakas, harassing people in their homes, emptying wine barrels, and causing much disturbance of a poltergeist nature. Doors rattled and the lights went out on their own. 

Exorcising a Vrykolakas

The things and haunting the vrykolakas caused were said to be mostly harmless, but when he started harassing the wealthy people and when a donkey was found beaten up. The villagers gathered to call a priest to stop it all. 

Locals insisted that the man be exhumed and exorcised to stop the haunting of the vrykolakas. The church allowed it, at least, the rituals went ahead anyway and they buried the man up to look at his corpse. The witnesses claimed that the body was not decaying as it should have and that it was unnatural how well preserved it was. 

It’s worth noting that according to de Tournefort and his other foreign associates, it was well decayed. How it really was is unknown today, but as we have seen in other stories about the Vrykolakas, a decaying corpse in the ground doesn’t necessarily stop people from believing it needs to be exorcised.  

The Vrykolakas Vampires: In Greek folklore, they believed in the vampiric Vrykolaka. Traditionally believed that a person could become a vrykolakas after death due to a sacrilegious way of life, but also through other means, like A cat leaping across a fresh grave, Consuming meat from a sheep slain by a wolf or werewolf. Some believed that a werewolf itself could become a powerful vampire after being killed. This revenant wasn’t after just the blood, but also the flesh, some saying the liver was its favorite.

Burn the Heart of the Vrykolakas

As a final thing, they decided to remove the person’s heart to burn it, but there were no trained doctors there, and they brought a butcher to the chapel instead. The butcher had problems finding the heart however and ended up mutilating the body in search for it. It was a horrible stench, and although the priests burned incense to cover it up, fear spread through the crowd. The author things that the smell, sight and superstition caused people to hallucinate, and they started screaming “Vrykolakas” to his mutilated body, warm with what seemed like fresh blood. 

Read Also: The Shoemaking Vrykolakas Vampire from Pyrgos Castle

The corpse’s heart was removed, taken to the seashore and burned. A detail of the ritual that also happened on the other side of the world in the New England Vampire Panic a century later. His body was reinterred, but then the haunting of the vrykolakas’ only increased. He was apparently entering their homes now, beating people up in their sleep. According to lore, knocking on people’s doors appears in many stories about the vrykolakas. They only knocked once, calling the names of those living there. If you opened for the vrykolakas, everyone inside could die. That’s why there still is a saying in Greece, you should only answer the door on the second knock. 

They tried holding a chanting march of prayers through the village, but it didn’t work. They tried hammering nails into the body, but no luck. People fled their home, the streets were empty after dark. 

Read More: The Vrykolakas Vampire in Patmos

Finally the body was taken to another island and cremated. Lore tells that the Vrykolakas can’t cross salt water on their own, so on the Greek islands, bodies of those suspected of being vampiric would be put on uninhabited islands. In this case, his body was transported in secret, since this was apparently against Orthodox canon and the local priest feared an official reprimand. According to Ortodox doctrin, it’s not compatible with the doctrine of bodily resurrection. On January 16th, 1701, they took the boat out, some believing it could be to the islet of Baos just off the coast of Mykonos. With that extreme measure, all phenomena ceased, according to de Tournefort’s account.  

When the travel account was published in 1717, the timing coincided with the European vampire panic that would take hold of the continent, and the cases of vampires in Serbia and other places in eastern Europe would cement the lore of vampirism into modern folklore. 

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References:

By Light Unseen – Vampires in Media and Culture

The Vroucolaca of Mykonos: An Enlightenment Eyewitness to Greek Vampire Panic 

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t4th9mz1d&seq=368

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort – Wikipedia 

https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Voyage_into_the_Levant/zDYZAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=inauthor%3A%22Joseph%20Pitton%20de%20Tournefort%22&pg=PA103&printsec=frontcover

Vrykolakas – Wikipedia

Greek Accounts of the Vrykolakas

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The Atoning Vrykolakas Vampire in Santorini

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After a man died before atoning for his crimes, he came back from the dead as a vampiric Vrykolakas when his wife failed to follow his final wishes. What followed was a month full of terror and haunting.  

Perhaps the sunny Santorini is not the place people think vampire-like creatures roamed, although history would tell you otherwise. 

Read More: Check out all ghostly tales from Greece

From the text from a French priest, we have some of the oldest stories of the vampiric Vrykolakas from Greek folklore documented in writing. One of them being the tale of a merchant from Patmos called Patino. 

Santorini: The Greek Island, officially Thira or Thera, is around 200 km from mainland Greece in the Aegean Sea. As well as ancient Greek mythology, the folklore was influenced from the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman rule as well as Orthodox Christianity. Pyrgos Kallistis was the former capital of Santorini.Some speculate that there are so many vrykolakas stories from here because of the volcanic soil so the body doesn’t decompose as well.

The Atoning Vrykola

One of the stories we have written down from a Jesuit priest came from the cousin of a man who had died on Santorini. He was known as a usurer and money lender named Lanettis. He is also sometimes given the last name Anapliotis. Lanettis reformed in the last year of his life and started to make amends to the people he had wronged. When he died he asked his wife to pay his remaining debts, and rectify his wrongdoings if the people came to her. 

Read Also: The Shoemaking Vrykolakas Vampire from Pyrgos Castle

She ended up not adhering to his final wishes though. Instead, she spent the money meant as alms on people she liked, not those in need. Lanettis began haunting his village six weeks after his death as something between a vampiric monster and a revenant ghost. 

Vrykolakas Stories: Jesuit Priest François Richard was a missionary to the Greek island of Santorini. In Paris, his accounts about the Vrykolakas appeared titled: Relation de l’Isle de Sant-erini, 1657. He believed the devil kept some corpses and animated them. For the Jesuit, the “vrykolakas” was simply “a special case of diabolic possession. He said that when a village is visited by vrykolakas, the villagers gather in one house for protection, and apply to their Bishop for permission to exhume the suspect. This is done on a Saturday, the only day when a vrykolakas may rest in its grave. If the body is found “fresh and gorged with new blood”, it is “exorcised” with prayer or cremated.

Almost like a poltergeist, Lanettis started terrorising the villagers. But as a Vrykolas, as the Greek knew these types of the returned dead as. 

Read More: The Vrykolakas Vampire in Patmos

He was known to be yanking the bedclothes off of sleeping people, waking up the priests for matins, emptying wine kegs, and generally abusing and terrorizing people. It seemed to not be targeted toward any particular person, and everyone could become a target. 

The Vrykolakas Vampires: In Greek folklore, they believed in the vampiric Vrykolaka. Traditionally believed that a person could become a vrykolakas after death due to a sacrilegious way of life, but also through other means, like A cat leaping across a fresh grave, Consuming meat from a sheep slain by a wolf or werewolf. Some believed that a werewolf itself could become a powerful vampire after being killed. This revenant wasn’t after just the blood, but also the flesh, some saying the liver was its favorite.

He visited the Mother Prioress of a Dominican convent, awakened her by rolling her rosary on the floor, jeered at her prayers. She spat in his face and asked what he wanted. as a parting joke, threw her shoes into the water cistern. Simply praying the ghost away would do no good. 

Exhuming and Exorcising a Vrykola

This haunting went on for around a month. His wishes to atone in his life had turned into terrorising more people in his afterlife. After a woman lost her speech for three days after encountering him, the villagers gathered up the courage to go to his wife, trying to make her do the right thing and comply with her husband’s final wishes. 

This was not enough however, certain rites had to be done to make sure he strayed in his grave. His body was exhumed, and examined. According to the story, his body didn’t really show signs of being undead, and was badly decayed. Just for good measure though, he was exorcised for an entire day with prayers before being dismembered before he once again was buried. This happened not only once, but twice, and he didn’t stop his haunting until his wife repaid his debt back to everyone to atone for his sins in life. 

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References:

Vampirólogos. Francois Richard 

By Light Unseen – Vampires in Media and Culture

Vrykolakas – Wikipedia

Greek Accounts of the Vrykolakas

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The Vrykolakas Vampire in Patmos

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After terrorizing his village, the Vrykolakas Vampire from Patmos in Santorini were taken to an inhabited island and set on fire. The question is, did it really work?

Perhaps the sunny Santorini is not the place people think vampire-like creatures roamed, although history would tell you otherwise. 

Read More: Check out all ghostly tales from Greece

From the text from a French priest, we have some of the oldest stories of the vampiric Vrykolakas from Greek folklore documented in writing. One of them being the tale of a merchant from Patmos called Patino. 

Santorini: The Greek Island, officially Thira or Thera, is around 200 km from mainland Greece in the Aegean Sea. As well as ancient Greek mythology, the folklore was influenced from the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman rule as well as Orthodox Christianity. Pyrgos Kallistis was the former capital of Santorini.Some speculate that there are so many vrykolakas stories from here because of the volcanic soil so the body doesn’t decompose as well.

The Merchant from Patmos

The story was relayed to the Jesuit Priest, by the abbot of the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Amourgo on an island not too far from Patmos, Santorini where the story is set.

A merchant from Patmos called Patino went on a business trip to Anatolia, the peninsula in West Asia that is mainly the land area of Turkey today. While he was there, he died, although the sources don’t say from what. They put him in a coffin and got him ready to be shipped home for his burial. When lifting him into the boat, one of the sailors on the ship was placed on top of it, and claimed he felt something move inside of the coffin. 

He talked the other sailors to lift the lid of the coffin to check it out, and saw that his body was perfectly preserved, with no signs of decay. It doesn’t really say how long time had passed since his death though. According to the story, the sailors said nothing of what they had seen to his wife when they returned her husband. 

Vrykolakas Stories: Jesuit Priest François Richard was a missionary to the Greek island of Santorini. In Paris, his accounts about the Vrykolakas appeared titled: Relation de l’Isle de Sant-erini, 1657. He believed the devil kept some corpses and animated them. For the Jesuit, the “vrykolakas” was simply “a special case of diabolic possession. He said that when a village is visited by vrykolakas, the villagers gather in one house for protection, and apply to their Bishop for permission to exhume the suspect. This is done on a Saturday, the only day when a vrykolakas may rest in its grave. If the body is found “fresh and gorged with new blood”, it is “exorcised” with prayer or cremated.

The Merchant Returning as a Vrykolaka

His wife had him buried with full honors according to the story, so his transformation wasn’t because of anything with an improper burial as many vampiric stories allude to. He began appearing in houses in the area, violently assaulting people and causing damage. Fifteen people are said to have died after his beating, or just in pure terror. 

Read Also: The Shoemaking Vrykolakas Vampire from Pyrgos Castle

Prayers and exorcisms were fruitless in stopping the haunting. Patino’s body was ordered sent back to Natolia, but the thoroughly spooked sailors charged with its transport stopped on the first island they passed and burned it, which ended the phenomena. 

The Vrykolakas Vampires: In Greek folklore, they believed in the vampiric Vrykolaka. Traditionally believed that a person could become a vrykolakas after death due to a sacrilegious way of life, but also through other means, like A cat leaping across a fresh grave, Consuming meat from a sheep slain by a wolf or werewolf. Some believed that a werewolf itself could become a powerful vampire after being killed. This revenant wasn’t after just the blood, but also the flesh, some saying the liver was its favorite.

The same Jesuit priest notes elsewhere in his writings that vrykolakas were commonly thought to be unable to cross salt water by themselves, and they were often dispatched on uninhabited islands. Like on the island of Amourgo, where they were said to roam freely often in groups of five or six, feeding on raw green beans. Who knows, perhaps there is still someone roaming the sunny islands around Santorini?

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References:

Vampirólogos. Francois Richard 

By Light Unseen – Vampires in Media and Culture

Vrykolakas – Wikipedia

Greek Accounts of the Vrykolakas

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The Shoemaking Vrykolakas Vampire from Pyrgos Castle

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After a humble life as a shoemaker on Santorini in Greece, a man was said to have come back as a Vrykolakas, the vampire of Greek folklore. But for this Vrykolaka, it wasn’t to devour human life that kept him going. 

Perhaps the sunny Santorini is not the place people think vampire-like creatures roamed, although history would tell you otherwise. 

Read More: Check out all ghostly tales from Greece

From the text from a French priest, we have some of the oldest stories of the vampiric Vrykolakas from Greek folklore documented in writing. One of them being the tale of Alexander from Pyrgos. 

Santorini: The Greek Island, officially Thira or Thera, is around 200 km from mainland Greece in the Aegean Sea. As well as ancient Greek mythology, the folklore was influenced from the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman rule as well as Orthodox Christianity. Pyrgos Kallistis was the former capital of Santorini.Some speculate that there are so many vrykolakas stories from here because of the volcanic soil so the body doesn’t decompose as well.

The Shoemaker at Pyrgos Castle

His name was said to be Alexander, and he had been a shoemaker at Pyrgo Castle. He was known as a gentle and kind man when he was alive.

It’s not mentioned exactly what happened that turned Alexander into a vrykolaka after his death. Most often, Greek vampire stories tell about people living sinful lives that are turned into vampires. In Alexander’s case however, it seems something else must have triggered the transformation. One thing worth noting is that Alexander is far from the only shoemaker that turned into a vampire, although the connection to the profession is unknown. 

Vrykolakas Stories: Jesuit Priest François Richard was a missionary to the Greek island of Santorini. In Paris, his accounts about the Vrykolakas appeared titled: Relation de l’Isle de Sant-erini, 1657. He believed the devil kept some corpses and animated them. For the Jesuit, the “vrykolakas” was simply “a special case of diabolic possession. He said that when a village is visited by vrykolakas, the villagers gather in one house for protection, and apply to their Bishop for permission to exhume the suspect. This is done on a Saturday, the only day when a vrykolakas may rest in its grave. If the body is found “fresh and gorged with new blood”, it is “exorcised” with prayer or cremated.

The Helpful Vampire of Pyrgos

According to the story, Alexander returned from the grave, not to attack or eat the flesh from the living like in many stories, but appeared to his living wife as he had in life. He returned to mend his children’s shoes, carry water for the family, work on their house and chop their firewood. 

The Vrykolakas Vampires: In Greek folklore, they believed in the vampiric Vrykolaka. Traditionally believed that a person could become a vrykolakas after death due to a sacrilegious way of life, but also through other means, like A cat leaping across a fresh grave, Consuming meat from a sheep slain by a wolf or werewolf. Some believed that a werewolf itself could become a powerful vampire after being killed. This revenant wasn’t after just the blood, but also the flesh, some saying the liver was its favorite.

Although his family’s reaction to this is not talked about, it seems this went on for a while, and it was his neighbors who took matters into their own hands. After seeing him going on with his chores, fetching water from the cistern and chopping wood in the valley, they decided to exhume his body from his grave. According to lore, all vrykolakas went back to their graves on Saturdays, so it’s most likely this is what happened. Here, even the helpful dead needed to go. 

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References:

Vampirólogos. Francois Richard 

By Light Unseen – Vampires in Media and Culture

Vrykolakas – Wikipedia

Greek Accounts of the Vrykolakas

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The Beautiful Queen Lamia Who Became a Vampire Monster Ghost Stories

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The Lamia was a feared bloodsucking monster that worked as the boogeyman of ancient Greece. Many will say that her tale has helped shape the vampire legends in Europe, but before that, she was said to have been the beautiful Queen of Libya. 

Among the many monstrous figures that haunt ancient mythology, few have cast as long and disturbing a shadow as Lamia. Her story begins not with a demon but with a woman. In early Greek tradition Lamia was remembered as a beautiful queen of Libya, a mortal ruler whose fate became entangled with the gods. Over time her legend transformed from tragedy into horror. The grieving mother of myth became a night wandering predator associated with witches, vampires, and the devouring of children.

The evolution of Lamia’s legend is one of the clearest examples of how a mythological figure can slowly change across centuries, absorbing fears about motherhood, sexuality, death, and the supernatural.

Fragments of a floor mosaic from 1213 in “San Giovanni Evangelista (Ravenna), Italy.

The Queen of Libya Turned Monstrous

The earliest sources describe Lamia as the daughter of Belus, king of ancient Libya stretching across North Africa. Ancient writers often emphasized her beauty. That beauty drew the attention of Zeus, the king of the gods, who took Lamia as his lover. Their relationship produced children. The Greek lyric poet, Stesichorus also said that she was a daughter of Poseidon and mother of the sea monsters Scylla and Acheilus, the Shark. 

The tragedy that shaped Lamia’s transformation came from Hera, Zeus’s jealous wife. According to the most widely repeated version of the myth, Hera punished Lamia by destroying or stealing her children. Some accounts say Hera killed them outright. Others claim Lamia herself was driven mad and killed them under Hera’s influence. In every version the result is the same. Lamia lost her children and was left to suffer with the memory.

The Real Queen of Libya: Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC) gave a de-mythologized account of Lamia as a queen of Libya who ordered her soldiers to snatch children from their mothers and kill them, and whose beauty gave way to bestial appearance due to her savageness. The queen, as related by Diodorus, was born in a cave. // Image: “Lamia” from “The History of Four-footed Beasts” (1607).

Grief twisted into obsession and Lamia began stealing the children of other mothers. She crept into houses at night, snatching infants from their cradles and devouring them. The myth explains this as a cruel attempt to make other women experience the same loss she had suffered.

The transformation did not stop there. The once beautiful queen was said to have changed into something monstrous. Later descriptions gave her the body of a woman above the waist and a serpent below, or portrayed her with a grotesque face and terrible jaws suited for devouring children.

Hera prevented her from closing her eyes so she would never escape the vision of her lost children. Zeus eventually took pity on her suffering and granted her an unusual ability. Lamia could remove her eyes from their sockets and replace them later, allowing herself moments of rest from the constant grief.

This strange detail would later contribute to Lamia’s reputation as a creature of dark magic and prophecy. Some traditions even described her as possessing the “mark of a Sibyl”, a gift of supernatural sight.

From Monster to Night Demon Vampire

By the classical period the name Lamia had already begun to change meaning and became part of Hellenistic folklore. Greek writers started using the word not only for the individual queen but also for a whole class of creatures known as lamiai (λάμιαι). These beings were night demons who haunted lonely places, caves, and the edges of cities.

Parents frightened disobedient children with warnings that Lamia would come for them in the dark. Ancient authors such as Diodorus and Horace mention this practice, suggesting the creature had already become a kind of mythic bogey figure in the ancient world.

Descriptions of lamiai also grew increasingly vampiric. Later stories from the first century depict them as succubus phasmas or ghosts, seducing young men before draining their blood or devouring their flesh. Some sources portray them as shapeshifters who appeared as beautiful women before revealing monstrous forms.

This is also when she started appearing in classical literature and lore with the Empusa, demons working for Hecate. They were companions of the goddess Hekate which followed her to earth from the depths of the underworld.

As a monster the Lamia transformed into something ugly. Lamia had the tail of a serpent in place of legs. The ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus simply describes her as having a distorted or disfigured face. They were also associated with caves and damp places. In more modern Greek folktales, the Lamia is said to live in remote houses, also having magical powers like a witch.

Lamia and Lilith

Lamia’s story also developed striking parallels with the figure of Lilith from Jewish folklore. Both were portrayed as female night spirits associated with the death of infants and the seduction of men. Lamia may originate from the Mesopotamian demoness Lamashtu.

Lilith, by John Collier

In the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, the name Lamia was even used to translate the Hebrew word Lilith in the Book of Isaiah. Lamia is used in early translations of the Bible for screech owls and sea monsters. This linguistic overlap reinforced the idea that the two figures represented similar demonic beings.

Later occult traditions strengthened the connection further. Both Lamia and Lilith became associated with female demons who preyed on children, drained blood, and moved through the night as embodiments of uncontrolled desire and vengeance.

The Birth of the Vampire Witch

During late antiquity and the early Middle Ages the word lamia expanded even further in meaning. Christian writers and scholars began using it as a general term for witches or female demons who preyed on humans. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the term could refer directly to witches believed to harm children or drink blood.

Lamia (second version, 1909) by John William Waterhouse

The shift shows how Lamia’s myth merged with broader fears about witchcraft and nocturnal spirits. Occult writers and demonologists sometimes used the term lamia for women who had entered pacts with demonic forces. In this way Lamia became linked not only with monsters but with the image of the blood drinking witch, a concept that would echo through later vampire legends.

The creature that once belonged to Greek myth became part of the developing European folklore of the night. Many of the vampiric, witch and demonic legends found around the continent can be traced back to her. 

Even today the core elements of the legend remain intact. Lamia is still remembered as a creature of the night. She is a devourer of children, a seductress of men, and a figure whose tragedy transformed her into something monstrous.

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References:

Lamia – Wikipedia

Lamia – Etymology, Origin & Meaning

Lamia – World History Encyclopedia

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The Haunted Bathhouse in Ancient Greece

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From the ancient writings of Plutarch, we can find a greek ghost story of the ghost of a young orphaned boy named Damon haunted a bathhouse in Chaeronea in Greece. According to the legend, the ghost haunted the place for centuries, perhaps even to this day?

Many of the oldest ghost stories sounds eerily alike to those of today, showing that the concept of ghost have been fairly consistent across time and place. Although most ghost stories from the ancient world is found in mythology and fairy tales, there are those ghost stories that comes from more historical records. Like this greek ghost story about a haunted bathhouse from the writings of Plutarch.

Read also: There are many ghost stories from ancient times, like Khonsuemheb and the Ghost of Theban Necropolis and Ghost of Tu-Po — The Hungry Ghost

Plutarch (AD 46–after 119), was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo. He also served his last thirty years a priest in Delphi. He also was a part of The Eleusinian Mysteries for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. They are the “most famous of the secret religious rites of ancient Greece“. So a man of the spirits, to say the least.

Temple of Delphi: This area of Greece have always been steeped in mystery and this greek ghost story happened not far from the mystical temple of Delphi.

Plutarch is known primarily for his Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous men from that time. Although the writings is mostly about vices and virtues and about philosophy about moral, he managed to put in a couple of ghost stories here and there as well.

Ghosts in Ancient Greece

So how did the typical ghost in ancient Greece look like? Back then it was closely linked to Greek mythology as it was the go to for explaining the unexplainable.

In ancient Greece there was two underworld goddesses the restless spirits belonged to: Melinoe and Hecate. Both were associated by wandering at night, with a trail of ghosts behind them, striking fear in anyone who saw them and their train of restless spirits following them to the underworld as their hounds barked with them. The two goddesses were also the ones that oversaw the burial rituals, something that was very important for the Greek and their ghost stories.

The Spirits of the Underworld: This greek ghost story and most other stories was deep rooted in the Greek mythology. Here depicted in: Souls on the Banks of the Acheron by Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl in 1898.

There were three main categories of ghosts in ancient Greece that restless spirits could be divided into: the ataphoi, the aoroi and the biaiothanatoi.

The ataphoi was the spirit of those who had not had a proper burial and their mission haunting was to get the living to bury them properly so they would be able to move on. This was mostly an easy fix as long as you could find the body, and after they had a properly burial they would mostly just disappear to the afterlife.

The aoroi was ghost of those that died too young and had led an incomplete life and was a bit more tricky to deal with. This type of ghost could possible become vengeful after death because of the regret of dying before its time.

The biaiothanatos however was the ghost that died a violent death, either murdered or in war. Like the two other categories it was highly important with the proper funeral rites for the dead so they would not awake as ghosts and haunt the place and possible harm the living.

A Greek Ghost Story

One of the ghost stories we find in the biography is about Cimon (510-450 BC). The ghost story is set in Chaeronea in Boeotia in Central Greece, just east of Delphi. It was also the birth town of Plutarch and it is said this was a ghost story he personally knew off as the ghost was still about in his day and age.

This greek ghost story tells the story about Damon Peripoltas, an orphan boy, living in Chaeronea. At this time, the city was ravaged by war and poverty, making it a breeding ground for violence like this story turned out to be.

Damon was said to be a beautiful boy, more so than the rest. He was a descendant of Peripoltas, the ancient seer that led his people to Boeotia. The descendants of the seer were held in high esteem, but it all changed after Damon though.

Although he was deemed to be a beautiful boy, he was also regarded as a dangerous one. He was poor, untrained and filled with rage and had no problems with violence. Something the whole city was about to know the hard way.

The Roman Commander’s Advances

A Roman commander was wintering in Chaeronea with his unit. One day, the young Damon, just past his childhood, caught the commander’s eyes and the commander decided he wanted him. The Roman commander claimed he fell in love with the beautiful orphan boy and made a pass on him. He tried to shower Damon in presents and gifts to woo him over, but Damon refused and was offended by the grown man’s advances.

This made the commander angry and his approach towards Damon changed. He threatened the boy with violence and said he would send Damon into obscurity and poverty if he did not give into him.

Damon got afraid of the repercussions he would suffer at the hands of the Roman commander and fearing exactly this, as he had seen what poverty could do to a man, Damon plotted against the man before he was the one suffering. But he had no intention of giving into the commander.

Smeared With Soot and Drunk on Wine

Damon had grown up in the rough city on the streets and a violent end was all he knew off. He gathered sixteen of his friends to help him see the plot towards the Roman through. They smeared their face with soot one night and got drunk on wine to gather the courage to get on with it.

Just before the break of dawn they attacked the Roman commander as he was sacrificing to his gods in the marketplace. The crew of youngsters killed the Roman then and there, and together they left the city before getting caught.

A Tragic Greek Ghost Story: This story ended in blood as almost everyone in the story ended up murdered. Here a depiction of the assassination of the Roman emperor, Julius Caesar who also were murdered by a group in a public place.

According to Roman law presiding in the city, this was punished by death, and this was the sentence the counsel of Chaeronea gave them. So, as the council sat to supper in the evening, Damon and his men broke into the town-hall were they were dining and slew them all. And yet again, they flew the city.

Hunted by the Romans

An investigation was done and they asked Damon to return, noticing the city also had been wrong. Damon was ravaging and pillaging the countryside with his accomplices, having fallen to poverty as he desperately didn’t want to. He was even making threats to the city that had cast him out. They lured him back by appointing him gymnasiarch, a high honor as an official, that would lead to respect and riches. He couldn’t refuse.

But when he came, he was having a vapor bath in the bathhouse and was slain. But they would never silence him as it was said that the ghost of Damon haunted the bathhouse.

His ghost roamed the bathhouse and the phantom of him appeared in it, sighing and groaning of his life that was cut short and from the betrayal.

The Haunted Bathhouse

Because of the ruckus from the ghost in the bathhouse, the citizens walled the bathhouse shut, trying to keep him inside, trying to put a lid on the past and their deeds. And it was said that still in Plutarch’s time, neighbors could still hear him inside, trying to get out again, to flew the city once more and finally be free.

Haunted Bathhouse: The greek were famous of their advanced public bathhouses. In this greek ghost story, the locals had to close up the bathhouse as the ghost of the murdered Damon kept crying and trying to escape.

Descendants of Damon’s family still lived at that time, near Stiris in Phocis. They are called Asbolomeni, or Besooted because of how Damon smeared himself with soot before committing his crimes.

What happened with the bathhouse and this greek ghost story if the place ever got quiet is uncertain, as ghost that met a violent end had a habit of holding a grudge for a long time.

 

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References:

Plutarch • Life of Cimon 

Ancient Ghost Stories from Around the World

https://books.google.no/books?id=TCFLl6fJDI8C&pg=PT208&lpg=PT208&dq=Peripoltas+the+seer&source=bl&ots=LePWgeDZ8N&sig=ACfU3U1J75_YztO03ZfddmP8WOiYCeym_g&hl=no&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbwcbosOboAhWCxMQBHQm-A7kQ6AEwAXoECAsQNA#v=onepage&q=damon&f=false